Board of Education - Regular Meeting

diverse perspectives. Act with dignity and professionalism. Number three, maintain distinction between board and staff roles. Number four, commit to continuous learning and professional development. Uh, thank you very much. Um, I'd now like to ask for a motion on approval of the meeting agenda. I would like to ask for one change in the um, review and action items. I'd like to switch the orders of items number D and E in order to keep all the financial stuff together and the labor stuff together if that's okay. And I have a motion along those lines. I move to approve the agenda with the amendments mentioned. I second. All in favor?

I. The motion passes. Uh now we'll move on to recognitions uh with a packed house today. I'd like to um bring Director Shan up to talk about uh celebration of uh elementary schools reading progress.

Thank you, President Mahoney and members of the board. Thank you to the community for being here. Um my name is Karen Shriner. I'm the director of our teaching and learning department. And tonight we have the joy of recognizing a group of elementary students who have shown remarkable growth and persistence as readers this year. So students, I want to speak directly to you all for a moment. Every reader's journey looks different. Some of you may have found reading pretty easy at the beginning of the year and you've still pushed yourself and grown even more this year. Some of you may have started the year feeling like reading was really hard and now it's starting to feel easier. And some of you might still find reading challenging, but you keep showing up and practicing and not giving up. So tonight, we're celebrating your hard work, your growth, and your persistence. No matter where you are on your reading journey, we're all really incredibly proud of you. We also know that no one grows alone. Students cannot do it alone. Teachers cannot do it alone. Families cannot do it alone. But when we all work together, incredible things can happen for our students. So, thank you to the educators who support our young readers every day. And thank you to the families and caregivers who partner with us and encourage their students at home. Your support really makes this possible in Albany. So, I'm going to talk a little just about how tonight's celebration is going to work. I'll read students names by school site. We're gonna start with Ocean View and when your name is called, you'll come on up and your principal, one of your lovely principles will be here. Um, and they'll hand you your certificate of recognition. Families, if you want to take photos, you're welcome to, but we're going to try to keep things moving so we can recognize everyone while also sending our students home at a reasonable time to get a good night's sleep. Some of our students and families let us

know they wouldn't be able to join us tonight. And a couple let us know they'd be joining from Zoom. So, we'll still read their names in recognition of their hard work. And their certificates will be sent to their school so they can take it home. After we finish calling the names for each school site, invite everyone to recognize our readers with a big round of applause. And students, afterwards, you're invited to choose a book to take home. We can't see it because the table is so packed by all of our friends here. Um, but in the back are some of personally my favorite books that I used when I taught in elementary school. And we hope we find you find a good one to take home with you. And to everyone in the community, we'll be sending out a feedback form, teachers, families, even our upper grade students around how this celebration went so we can use that to inform future celebrations far beyond literacy. So keep an eye out for that feedback form so that you can help shape any future student celebrations we have. We're going to begin now.

Thanks Principal Dougado for being here. Sure.

Would Nefi please come forward? And if they were not here that's okay. We'll still hold applause till the end. Thank you. Uh Mila Rodriguez, Isaiah Ramos. Yay. Come on up, friends. Anastasia, come on up. Anastasia. I didn't see Anastasia. Theodore Ryan, come on up. That's not his. Sorry.

Haknazar, come on up.

Jacob, come on up. Andrew, come on up. Molly, come on up.

And Nate, come on up. Let's give a big hand to all of our Ocean View readers. Congratulations. And now we're going to move on to our Marin readers with Principal Melissa George Osaba. Come on up.

Finley, come on up. I think they might be joining from Zoom today. Santiago, come on up.

Paisley, come on up. Lyric, come on up. And Noah, come on up. Aaron Aosta, come on up. Milan, come on up. And Sariah, come on up. One more round of applause for our Marin readers. And now we'll recognize some of our friends from Cornell. Leila Terminal, come on up if you're here. Yay. Damian Rodriguez, Robbie Chalmer's Maria, come on up. Amelia, come on up. Eggshaglin, come on up.

Vivy Martinez, come on up.

And Taji, come on up.

Congratulations again to all of our readers. One more final round of applause. reading and all the hard work it requires truly opens doors. We're so proud of you. We invite you to take a book on your way out and keep working hard, keep growing. We are here to support you. Have a great night, families. You're welcome to stay, of course, and you're also welcome to pick up a book and head on home and do dinner, bedtime, and all those other things. Thank you again for being here and for your partnership and support. Amazing. It's um it's always hard to move on after something like that, I think.

Oh, wait a minute.

Oops. Uh, okay. Um, I guess I before we move on to the next item, I wanted to kind of sort of say I love the excitement. Um, but I do want to say that like later on in this uh board meeting, we're going to go over some of the data supporting what's been happening with our reading progress, particularly at all grade levels, but including the elementary grades. It's more impactful, at least for me, to see the kids that are actually impacted the numbers on a page. And so, it's really good for this to sort of remind us of um why we're all here. So, uh, with that, I'll move on to what's a core part of how we kind of get kids to that next sort of level, which is it's not happening by anybody by themselves. As, as Director Trainer says, it takes a village. And, uh, so I'll turn it over to uh, Superintendent Stone for uh, our staff recognition.

Thank you, President Mahoney, and members of the board. Um I'm excited tonight to announce two um folks who were selected from our incredible staff. Um as you know each month we're um we ask people who are at the schools who are working directly with each other to nominate one another um to just be highlighted tonight. And again we know that each and every staff member works incredibly hard and this is just an opportunity for us to lift up and show um some of that hard work. And so tonight I'm very excited um because we have um two really just incredible um employees uh to share to recognize. So our first um uh staff member um was nominated by Aaliyah Wilks, our maintenance and facilities coordinator and um he is Rick Santos who is our chief lead custodian at Marin Elementary School. Yay. WOOHOO. UNFORTUNATELY, HE CAN'T BE here tonight, but I know that he is, I think, on Zoom. At least he said he would be. And I want to share what Aaliyah had to say about him. I am writing to formally recognize and express sincere appreciation for Rick Santos. Rick, your arrival to the school at 5:00 a.m. every day does not go unnoticed. Because of your reliability and strong work ethic, our campus is consistently open, prepared, and fully operational before the first student or staff member walks through the door. You Yes, you go beyond. Oh, there he is. Yay. Hi, Rick. WOOHOO. You go beyond completing tasks. You take ownership of the condition of the campus. Whether it's maintaining cleanliness, addressing repairs or

problems, you handle each responsibility with professionalism and pride. You show up every day fully present, ready to contribute, and committed to excellence. Your work ethic, dependability, and positive presence play a vital role in the success of Marin students and staff each day. Thank you for always being reliable. You are appreciated. All right.

And you do you are not required to do so, but would you like to say anything? I want to thank you all of you and God bless you all for the recognition.

Our pleasure. You really deserve it. Thank you for everything you do. You're very welcome. And I do have a beautiful award that I will be bringing over to you um one day this week and I'm going to hold it up. It's a really it's it's a nice um it's a nice honor um just of all the work that you do that you can keep wherever you so choose so you can be remembered uh reminded of of how appreciated you are. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much for being um on Zoom tonight. All right. And our other employee who we're going to recognize, and I'm not sure if she was able to come today, I do not see her. Um, and that is Camille Fischer, who is our safe and inclusive coordinator at Albany Middle School. And um, her uh, nominator would like to remain anonymous, but this is what was said about uh, Miss Fischer. Camille Fischer always goes above and beyond to support our students, to make them feel welcome and included every day. Her empathy and ability to connect with students is admirable and I feel very lucky to work with her. So again, thank you so much, Miss Fischer, for everything you do. Your work is definitely noticed, and we appreciate you, and I will be bringing this over to you as well this week. So, thank you. Thank you. Um, now we're going to move on to general comment for items that are not on the agenda. Um, you can have two minutes to speak. Uh, please note that the under the Brown Act, the board cannot respond to any comments at the uh given during open uh during public comment session.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Public comment is meant to be the community's chance to speak directly to its elected board. Yet, limiting the opportunity to two minutes, make it meaningful participation nearly impossible. Two minutes is not enough time to explain a a concern response to lengthy presentation and offer a thoughtful perspective, especially when the staff may have more minutes to shape their narrative before the public ever reaches the microphone. That imbalance matters. After hearing a polished detailed presentation, a commenter is expected to re rebute complex arguments, clarify misconception, persuade decision makers who may have may already have working relationships with the staff presenting the policy. Under that pressure, speakers can easily be perceived as emotional, rushed, or unclear. Not because they are, but because the structure itself puts them at disadvantage. If the district values transparency and trust, communication cannot end at the podium. My call to action is simple. Each board member should respond individually to the email sent to the board address and follow up with commeners commentary so community voices receive a fair unbiased hearing beyond the two minute limit. I read the district email asking us to help define what imagine an Albany student to be in previous meetings. I heard words like empathy, respectful, inclusion, and we all want our childrens to be heard. But many forget to do that as an adult and as a parent. I'm a veteran who served because what our country stand for rights, freedom, the pursuit of happiness, and the belief that we are all created equal. And one thing I will tell you, until you are able to sit across someone who is opposite of you and does not agree with you, that none of this will matter in Albany. We are so quick to argue every way someone is wrong and slow to look for the one thing we might share in common.

Thank you. Thank you. Uh any other comments in the room or to Zoom? Uh I believe I see none. Okay. Okay. Are we are you ahead? You have two minutes.

Permission to speak. My name is Christian Alcala, the register at Abid Middle School. And the CSA asks is asking for a good faith uh negotiations. And that's what we're asking for to move forward. And that's why we're all here presented as blue to let you guys know that this is what we're asking for for good negotiations. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other comments in the room? Okay. Uh moving on to student board member reports. Um, last Thursday, 37 high school students alongside Will Kasein um were invited to Bishop Odow's Odow's Black History Month celebration and spent the day learning and watching Bishop Odow's lessons and performance performances, most of which were done by students. This is the second year Bishop Odow has invited us and we hope to continue this informative and engaging tradition in the upcoming years of going. Um so the student bar members as um we have been working with Mr. Spring uh math teachers and counselors uh essentially just people across the school to um try to gather the diverse group of students for from different grades and math backgrounds um to sit on a panel um during next Friday's staff development day and we'll we'll be asking them um questions about their math experiences um and hopefully answering in front of uh teachers is a way for teachers to get more direct student feedback uh straight from students. concludes our report.

Great. Thank you. Um I now look to our labor partners. Uh labor partners have any reports they'd like to articulate?

Hi. How are you guys doing? Uh John Pauling for CSEA um president. Um, I have uh some comments and and some concerns from my um my members. Um, one all of all of the unions have uh sunshine agreements in their in their clause except for us and there everything was open except for us. Um the district countered with 3 3.2 3.24 um raise and that was their best and final. That's what they told us last week. um 2% guarant 2% general going uh across the salary and um Margaret will speak a little bit more on that because I'm going to yield some of my time to her. But um what is what is really what has really bug us is is the fact that we're not respected and we haven't been respected. Um this goes back before I got here and it continued while I was here. Um, some of the stuff, some of our members are um scared to come up here and speak to the board or whatever and fear of retaliation from the district such as um uh their time their time being messed

with, their leave time being messed with, and then just people who have not been in trouble, all of a sudden they are in trouble or have some some type of questions and that that would have to stop. You know, um the in our negotiations um the district has flatly refused reopeners in our articles and um all we wanted was well We wanted stuff to protect us like bumping rights. We wanted we wanted stuff to protect us like bumping rights. And um they would flatly refuse, you know, bumping rights. Um didn't want to open up, you know, to negotiate that. And I think that's why um in my opinion when you were here, was it two weeks ago or 3 weeks ago and asked for the um the uh um the anniversary thing and the anniversary date like that?

We all have the same anniversary date.

That is they wanted that passed. I feel they wanted that fa pass so that um we wouldn't get bumping rights and that you could not bump back down to the position that you were prior to um what else? Um that's that's pretty much all I have right now. I did have more but let Margaret speak on on behalf of

of the because at at 4:00 well 4:45 today um I norm normally don't check my my emails until you know I leave at 4 but at 4:45 we got an email from the district and to me it was it was pretty much a joke but um because I am on the bargain on the bargaining team and everything that was was stated to me wasn't I mean it's stated in the email wasn't um presented. So um this they the district knew that we were coming so I think they had to try to clean it up. So Margaret you want to say about the

um so the email that Johnny is referring to my name is Margaret Glendenning. a clerk at Cornell and also a member of the negotiations team. So anyway, the email he was talking about is a email we got from the district as just a negotiations update. I don't know if it was it was sent to CSEA members. I don't know who else it was sent to, but I imagine it will be sent out to the community. Um, so I just wanted to clarify a couple of things that are in that update. Um, one of them is regarding reopeners and the district proposed in our the latest proposal that we received from the district, they proposed the status quo language regarding reopeners and the exact language is the agreement shall be closed except that the parties may reopen, excuse me, may reopen by mutual agreement up to three articles during the 26 27th and 2728 school years. Uh in contrast, ATA is allowed allowed to reopen salary each year and quoting from their contract, each party may reopen on wages and salary and two other articles. End quote. There's no mutual agreement involved. So, with the district's proposed language, the CSCA will not be able to open our salary article unless the district also wants to open that article and any other articles and it's up to three articles that we could open by mutual agreement. The other thing I wanted to clarify um from that update is uh actually this isn't even in the update. CSCA proposed a very comprehensive article regarding the use of technology um including the potential for using AI to do work done by our members

currently. The district rejected our proposed language entirely with no counterp proposal and that's not mentioned in uh the update that we received. Um and also in contrast in their tenative agreement that was presented at the last board meeting ATA has anou regarding AEI which states um artificial intelligence shall not be used to replace bargaining unit positions or to perform work regularly and exclusively performed by bargaining unit members without written agreement with ATA. So just these two things, it just seems that the district doesn't take us, I guess, as seriously as they take the teachers ATA. Why are we not guaranteed any reopeners? At least one. All we ask, we're asking for two reopeners and that's it. Not mutually agreed on. We want two reopeners. And the other, why can't we have a bare minimum one sentence about AI? The district didn't come back with anything. The technology article we proposed covered AI, um, new software, hardware, things like that. We realized it was really maybe a bit over the top, but they came back with nothing. They didn't they didn't pare it down at all. They just said flat out no. So we just want to be taken seriously like these are our jobs and this is many people depend on this money for to you know raise their families pay rent why are we not taken seriously and we're trying to come up to par with other districts other neighboring communities that have minimum wage of $20 $20. How come we can't be up to par with with those people? Thank you.

Also, I I'd like to know um do the board go off of Robert rules of order or another Oh, yeah. What's the question? What's the question in terms of do you do you govern by Robert's rules of order? Yeah, more or less. Yeah.

Okay. Well, um in the last in the last meeting, um a chair person seconded the um the motion and can't be seconded by a chair and so I'd like to see that that be res rescended. um that last vote and that was on um about the um the huh yeah and it was about the um

anniversary

anniversary dates correct thank you thank you and so if if a chair seconds it the whole thing is is null and void and I'm going to you know say that so I you know as president would like to see um that not it passed but it shouldn't have passed because it was out of order and um I'd like something done about that um And uh that's that's it. Um that's all that I have and and I really want to know that and I don't know when when can I get a a a answer about about if it's going to be rescended or not.

Uh we'll have to look we'll have to look into it. I appreciate you bringing it to our attention and we'll take a look at it and and get back to you. Okay. Thank you. Other labor updates.

Yes. Hi, Kim Gray ATA. And I just want to say I'm excited to see that we have new leadership and good great organizing and to see all of um CSEA here and some of our teachers here too to support. And um just to let you know that u that ATA stands firmly with CSEA and that we hope that the district finds a way to honor their bargaining proposals and um I mean the ATA members cannot do our jobs without their support and partnership and CDSA members should be fairly compensated. it um really as much as they're making at 3% that they're asking for should be easy. They make so little. We know that the whole district is going to get the raise and they deserve to be given the raise of. And so I also want to say that um and I also want to say it's very unfortunate they're also feeling the disrespect the ATA felt during bargaining. And I know that um Superintendent Stone did a big apology about ATA feeling this way and that it wasn't going to happen again. And then we have all these people and more who are feeling the disrespect. So I hope that that doesn't continue and that there's a settlement soon. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Sonia Maldonado. I've been with the district for 25 years and my the only thing I have to say to you all sitting there is that imagine a day without uh this stuff. We running the classrooms with the teachers. We running the afterchool programs and imagine you all a day without us. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Oolinda Shear and next week will be 26 years of service. Um, last week and this week I had to be emergency pulled out of resource and I had to work with a special day class because they were short. Okay. Um, like I said, I've been working for 26 years. Every time I do my taxes, my tax person says, "Gosh darn it, you're still making that poverty wage and working 6 and 1/2 hours. And on top of that, I have to pay 20% of my medical." That's a shame. That is a shame. We are considered the working poor. Do you know here realators what they offer for prospective buyers is their schools, their special education programs. Who are they? Us. This is the special education program. Okay. Give us respect. In other countries, teachers are looked high upon, but here no. Okay. I'm driving a 2002 car, okay? Because I cannot afford a new car. When I was younger, I'm fif I'm going to be 64 in April 28th. I have to work cleaning an Airbnb to help pay for my PG&E. Okay, that's a shame. Have some ethic and morals and give us a fair raise. That's all we're asking for. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you. So, I just have Yeah, go for it.

Hi, my name is Leanne and um this is my second year um being a tendance clerk at Albany Middle School. Um before that uh you know I was working for a private company and I always thought wow teachers you know all these weeks that they have off that's wonderful but um now that I'm in the um education indust you know um industry I realize how much we all do for our students and our kids. Um, I think we all depend on each other to help raise our um, little ones, big ones, and they all need our nurturing, and we always put them first before our job. And um I'm just very happy to be here and I just hope that um the community realize um what we do for the schools and all of us here have very important roles in either small you know we all are together running this wonderful village. Thank you for acknowledging us.

Thank you.

Okay. Um, just really quickly, uh, my name is Joseette Weaten. I am now the vice president of the CSEA. Uh, you don't really get to hear from me. You only hear from me when I bring my peer educators up here for Tupi. But, um, hi. Um, I just want to say, um, that no one realizes that I have been the only campus security for 15 years at the high school. No one ever talks about that. I was there by myself for 15 years. 15 years before a budget was opened up and you hired two more people for me. I just made my 19th year. So, I just want to put that out there. Okay? I give my life, my heart, my soul. I'm more than a campus supervisor there. Okay? When the kids are going through things, I'm the person a lot of times that talks them off of the ledge. They come, they want to come and talk to me. I do, we do more than just campus supervisor. And I think we are totally underpaid. We deserve way more. And I just really want to put that out there. Think about that. 15 years by myself, little old me. I would never let anyone come in that school and do anything to these babies. They're my babies when they're there. And I love them. And I love the community of Albany. I lived in Albany. I moved in Albany. I have a special needs son that graduated from Albany High School. So, my heart is here. So, I'm just saying you need to look at this. Okay. The campus security is also very important in this district as well. You need to look at that. Middle school, high school, the elementary schools, they also need security as well. And I think that there is a lack of representation on the district level for security. You need to have someone in your district

office representing security. Thank you. All right. Great. Thank you. Having heard from our Having heard from our labor partners, we're moving on from labor partner reports to the superintendent report. Good afternoon, good evening everyone. I actually do not have a report tonight because we have a very long meeting and uh much of my report will be reflected in the vital signs. But I do want to appreciate our CSEA members and please know that we hear you. Okay, let's go to board committee updates.

I'll start with Trusty Boyd. Um I'll just say quickly that the student achievement committee uh met to review middle-ofear data to get a preview of that which we'll be um talking about a little bit later. Um and then also um discussed had a budget town hall as various other uh committees have done. Um and uh it was well attended and um appreciated the chance to meet and to review that data and then also to look at um how we show what our district cares about through how we spend our money.

Thank you. Trusty Khan, I think Hwood. Um yeah, I attended the excuse me the secondary ILT meeting at the high school a couple of weeks ago where we um talked about our collective vision for um graduate profile in the district. Um and um we have a special education advisory meeting coming up this Thursday at 6:30 p.m. All are welcome. Um and the link for that is on the district website. But but uh I I too attended this uh student uh achievement committee at advisory committee. Um I also attended the ocean view master planning uh committee. Um we didn't have a tremendous attendance. Um so HKID is going to come back and uh attend the Ocean View PTA meeting which is on uh later this week. I believe it's on Thursday. Um board reports. Back to you Trusty Boyd. Um, so at uh Cornell I had the chance to attend the coffee with Cat, coffee with the principal and um looking forward to the next community time which is next Wednesday the 18th. And then I'll also just say that spirit day at Cornell is this Friday where every grade has a different color that the students are asked to wear to represent their class. And it's a great way for students to show pride in their grade level and be a part of a colorful school community. So that's this Friday. every grade has a different color that they're supposed to wear for spirit day.

I think the only report I have is please come to the PTA meeting because we uh Ocean View PTA meeting on Thursday. Um one we'll have a before the meeting we'll have a meet and greet with our lovely superintendent Stone. Um and then at the end of the meeting we'll have a lovely presentation with our president uh Josh Mahoney. Um but uh beside that we will also have the election for the upcoming um PTA board which is really extremely important. We're also going to be working on a number of really major events. So we would love to see as many people there as possible. Um beyond that um I have been working with the um Ocean View PTA to um last year we officially formalized the uh Dr. Dr. Walls Library at the high school um at Ocean View. What we're launching and hoping to launch at other schools too is a um Dr. Walls library where uh we're taking brand new books that we are donating to um the libraries in honor of Dr. Walls. Um just last week we dropped off uh 100 books at Ocean View and we're hoping to do the same at other uh school sites in Albany to just um grow um the legacy of Dr. Walls. Um, I know we're coming up on his birthday and um, the anniversary of his passing and so we just want to continue to honor Dr. Walls and all that he did for our community and if you'd like to donate any books, feel free to reach out to myself or the PTA. Thank you.

You see Hwood?

Thank you. Uh, since our last meeting, I attended half of the Luna New Year celebration at Ocean View. So, thank you to the organizing committee, including Trusty Khan. Um, and I also attended the Marin Morning last Wednesday and coffee with the principal at Marin School. It was their spirit day last week, the rainbow of color, which was beautiful. Um, it was great to hear. There was a song actually Miss Hiltshire's third grade class singing Rolling Our Numbers, which is a multiplication fact song, which I was blown away by. And last Thursday, I attended the high school production of the musical Chicago. Insanely good. those kids be on Broadway now. It was such a treat to go to that. Um and that is everything for me.

Mr. President.

Yeah. So, I did attend the um great parenthe um at AMS PTA or hosted by the AMS PTA where Miss Burns, who's a high school counselor, and Sarah Hinckley, who's the current PTSA president, um were there to talk to the parents and a couple students about what it's going to be like to transition from 8th grade to 9th grade. Uh it was very well attended and it was a great discussion. Um tomorrow there are two events related to AMS. one um HKIT architects will be there to talk about the facilities plan. So if you haven't had an opportunity to do that, it'll they'll be there tomorrow. Um and then this is actually at the high school, but it's for 9th grade incoming parents. Um it's parent night. Um and on April 16th is the spring suare which is a really great event outdoor um carnival-like event that is for just the students and it takes literally about a hundred parent volunteers. Um there's a dunk tank, there's a photo booth. Um I believe um Superintendent Stone might be in the dunk tank. Um that's a rumor I heard. Um, and there's a photo booth, there's food, there's crafts. Anyway, it really does take about a hundred um parents. I'll be there um to volunteer and not not no I throw for the dunk tank. Um anyway, um it's there'll be a sign up sent out. So, if you can, please volunteer. Um and then lastly and two great things that were announced um by um principal Mapes is they did get a third counselor um for the middle school permanently going forward in the budget which is great and some additional campus security to help with the traffic. So that's it. Thank you.

I too was at I was at the first half of the Lunar New Year celebration in Ocean View on the 28th and I I like turnout was amazing and and I was fortunate enough to see the kids performing which totally blew me away. Uh, I too also saw the Chicago uh teen edition at the high school. Um, and saw some amazing performances including a spectacular police person, policeman throwing the uh money into the air. Um, which is actually great. And if you guys haven't attended performances, I've attended a number of performances at the high school and middle school over the year from a a theater perspective and bunch of different plays. And I'm I always leave incredibly impressed by what the kids uh pull together. Um, yeah. Yes, trust. Uh, and then, uh, I also want to give a shout out to the adult transition program. I stopped by for a coffee last Wednesday outside the district office. Excellent. Um, highly recommend. And then, uh, do you want to say something because I'm I was I was going into my little uh, spiel.

Okay.

Sorry. the the week is super busy so I kind of forget when we've done this stuff but um the Swana also had their uh Ramadan uh ifar potluck which we had more than 150 community members join us um and a demand for even more uh potlucks. Um hopefully we can uh accommodate that in the future but um for now please join us on March 29th to do a celebration of Eid and Holy. Um last year we did it for the very first time just um to make sure that we're representing all of our community and and bringing everybody together to celebrate all the different um ways in which our community celebrates um different things uh throughout the year. Um I also want to sorry did I say when it is March 29th at Ocean View. Um, I also want to highlight um, uh, the Jewish parent engagement group is hosting a Shabbat potluck um, this Friday, March 13th, from 5:00 to 7:00 at the Albany Memorial Park. Please come through um, it's open to everyone. It is potluck style, so bring a meal to share um, and enjoy the evening with everyone. Sorry, there is so much going on.

It's all good. We've got a lot of great things going on in the district. Um, I was just going to talk a little bit more about the Chicago Teen Edition. My daughter actually is home from college for spring break. Uh, she was a theater kid. One of the reason I saw all those different performances, I saw her in a bunch of different things and so she joined me to watch other performance of Chicago at the high school. She's also like a big re-watcher of television shows and like to be frank, it might be a generational thing. That's not what I do, but she'll go back to a series multiple times. It's for comfort food. So I asked her what she was re-watching nowadays and uh the answer was Ted Lasso. Um so I hadn't watched that series since it came out during the pandemic. And for those of you who have not seen it, spoiler alert, it features an American football coach who goes over to England to coach European football, aka soccer, and high jinks ensues. Uh Ted is a dorky outsider, but big-hearted. Uh and my favorite scene in that uh series involved Ted Lasso getting to a high stakes start match. Uh where it is assumed that the American will not know anything about the British pub sport. Uh Ted tells his competitor that he's been dismissed all his life. But one day, he saw a Walt Whitman quote on the wall that said, "Be curious, not judgmental." A spoiler alert, Ted wins the dart game. But what I've been thinking a lot about lately is the latter of inference and the idea that we are more need to be more curious and less judgmental about decisions, points of view, ideas, and if we do so, we'll probably be in a better place. And that's it for board reports. Um I'm now going to go to a staff report. Um, we've got the U AUSD bond issuance process.

Good evening everyone. At this time, I'd like to invite Mako Sato from ISM Advisors um to go ahead and cover the bond issuance process as we wrap up for our bond projects. Thank you, Linda. Me just make sure um would it be helpful for me to share the presentation? Yes, that'd be great.

Okay, great. So, let me share my screen. Um hopefully that looks good on your end. All right. Uh board members, Superintendent Stone, uh district administration, staff, and the entire Albany community. Thank you very much for your time this evening. As Linda mentioned, I am here to talk about the district's bond program. As you know, Albany USD voters have been very supportive of the district and they have passed six separate bond authorizations since 1993. The most recent one being Measure L that was passed by voters in November of 2024 with 72.2% support. The district has the full amount of the authorization 63.8 million um remaining as unissued bonds. One of the key inputs into the bond model is the assessed valuation. And so this graph um shows the history of assessed value for the district over the last 20 21 years. Um and you can see here that on average the assessed valuation growth has been very consistent and strong. Um, since 2005 to present, average annual assessed valuation growth has been 5.5%. On slide five, I did want to put provide a bit of a historical perspective on the bond program tax rate. So, at the time of the measure B and measure E authorization in 2016, the tax rate for all the outstanding bonds was $144 per $100,000 in assessed value. based on the original design of the measure B and measure E bond programs. Um, in combination of the two bond measures, they were intended to add $180 per

$100,000 in assessed value to the existing bond program tax rate for a combined total tax rate of about $324 per $100,000 in assessed value. The board actually made a decision after the election in 2016 to keep the combined tax rates for all bond authorizations at or below $250 per $100,000 in assessed value. So the table on the right hand side here shows the history of the bond program tax rates from 2016 to present. And you can see that there were a couple of years where the tax rate hit that maximum level um that was set by the board of $250 uh per $100,000 in assessed value. But in recent years due to higher than anticipated assessed valuation growth and being able to issue those series B and um sorry measure B and measure E bonds in a strong interest rate environment, tax rates have dipped below um the projected tax rate levels. And one of the things I wanted to highlight on this slide is that is that the 2024 measure LBOM program was designed around a combined tax rate target of $180 for $100,000 in assessed value. All right, so moving on to the current proposed bond financing. As I mentioned earlier, the district has the full amount of the 2024 Measure L authorization still to um available to be issued. Um as I mentioned in the previous slide, the Measure L program was designed as a tax rate extension measure targeting a total bond program tax rate of $180 for $100,000 in assessed value. The structure of the Measure L bonds would layer on top of the existing bond authorization. So, as long as as some of the older authorization starts to roll off, um the

new bonds uh will be layered on top to keep the overall tax rate consistent for the t for the district's community. The original financing plan assumed three series of bonds issued every other year, each with a par amount of approximately 20 to 22 million. Um the series 2026 bonds will be the first series of bonds for the measure L authorization. Um and the timing of this bond issuance um in late um spring aligns with the county's annual tax rate setting process. Whenever the district issues new money bonds, one of the things that we like to do is look to see um the outstanding bonds that the district has to see whether there are any opportunities to refund or refinance them for taxpayer savings. Um as of August 1st of 2026, there are a number of series of bonds um that are eligible to be called. Um a estimate of a refunding of those bonds um would generate approximately 3.8 million in taxpayer savings over time. I will note that these refunding savings are dependent on the market and as you know there's a lot of um events happening globally right now that may influence the borrowing rates but we did um if possible want to move forward with this refunding in conjunction with the new money bonds and currently you know these savings uh look great and so we are keeping our fingers crossed to to um and hope that these will be able to lock in these savings levels uh for the Albany taxpayers. Um in terms of our issuance schedule, um we've kicked off this financing um in February. Um we are making this presentation tonight to give the board an idea of the financing plan. The board will consider the resolutions

authorizing the issuance of the new money and the refunding bonds at the next regular board meeting, which is on April 14th. Um the district staff will then move forward with getting the bonds rated. Um the bonding capacity waiver um that was applied to will be um considered at the state board of education meeting at the beginning of May. Um it will allow us to post a preliminary official statement which is the main disclosure document for investors um during um on or around May 13th with pricing in late May and closing in early June. And that is it for the presentation

questions. Thank you. Questions? Uh I mean the the one thing I would call out is um so first of all, thank you for the presentation. Um excited that we're actually saving money, right? And so my back of I don't know I don't know what do you have a sense of what it means for a average Albany taxpayer in terms of savings? I did some back of envelope but Lord knows mine was just a back of envelope.

Yeah. So that um savings does get stretched out over the entire Albany Unified School District community. Um, and so for the individual taxpayer, um, it's usually not a life-changing amount of money, but we can, um, try to calculate that as well, um, if that's something that the board is interested in seeing.

My backup envelope was like $4,500 per per household over the lifetime. So, I mean, which is great, which is fantastic. Saved a little money. Um, any comments from the um comments or questions from the the room? see if there any comments or questions on Oh, go ahead.

Hi. Um, thank you for that. I just wanted to ask the board and uh and for all the the agendas. I don't see a uh a part of the agenda that says if you wanted this agenda please in another language please request it with whoever because uh some of these items are really important where um there are parents who you know language barrier but that doesn't mean they don't understand none of this I mean my dad worked as a as an accountant uh getting his uh architect degree in Nicarawa and came here he fully could understand everything here. So, the only thing I would say about these information and this um things is to have access to that and please put it in somewhere there.

Thank you. Appreciate the comment. Any other questions, comments? Okay, great. Thank you. Um I think we're now moving on. Are we done? Yeah, we're now moving on to the staff reports or the discuss uh sorry, discussion items. What? Vital signs. Vital signs. Yeah. Yeah. We're moving on to discuss items on the middle of the year vital signs report. Thank you, Mako.

Thanks for your patience while we get the deck up. I screen. Thanks so much, Julia. Hi, everyone. Um, tonight I'll be sharing our middle of year's v middle of year vital signs data. Um, and just as a reminder, our vital signs are our district's key data checks that we review three times a year at the beginning, middle, and end. And these data really serve three purposes for us. If you can go to the next slide, please. First, they help us monitor our progress towards our goals that we set for the for our district. They help us identify root causes and areas where students may need more support. And third, they guide our planning and our continuous improvement cycles across schools and departments. Our middle ofear data gives us an important snapshot of how students are progressing so far this year and where we still have work to do between now and the end of the year. And following each data review, school sites, departments use this information to develop and refine plans so that we can continue to make progress on our key priorities and pivot where needed. And our three priorities just as a review are around equitable and inclusive instruction, student belonging, and collaborative systems. So, I'm going to kick us off and focus on equitable and inclusive instruction and then I'll be passing it to Superintendent Stone who'll be sharing on behalf of Deb Brill around student belonging. Um, and then Superintendent

Stone will also share about collaborative systems. Good. Thanks so much. So, we have our really clear, measurable goals that align with our three priorities. And these goals help us monitor student outcomes, the experiences students have at school, and the systems that support learning and teaching. So it's really just a snapshot in time and there's many many other data points that leaders and specialists and teachers are using on a daily basis to inform the work that they do. And this is just a snapshot. Go ahead, Julie. So as it relates to equitable and inclusive instruction, we're going to start with K through five. Go to the next slide, please. And we're going to really focus our time to be narrow um around literacy. That's because that's where our priority is as a district this year. Um, and of course that'll shift and pivot in the future as our folky shifts and pivots. But this slide is really an overall um sense of how we are doing this year. We're seeing significant gains in kindergarten through fifth grade literacy. Um, we now have 78% of students reading at or above benchmark, which is an increase of seven percentage points from the start of the year. And we've had notable gains in subgroups of students, including our Latino, our Latino uh A, our black African-American students, and our multilingual learners. Um, and nearly all students who started the year at or above grade level have maintained that level of achievement. And at the same time, disproportionality exists, and some groups are still not yet meeting our district-wide goals. In grades six through eight, proficiency has declined slightly and more moderately for some student groups. So, we'll dig in a little bit deeper. Now, this visual shows both our current status and our end of year target so we can see how far we've come and where we're focusing our efforts for the rest

of this year. As I mentioned, we've made some pretty significant growth so far this year, which is really a huge testament to our teachers and the incredible work that they're doing every single day to support all of their learners in their classrooms. In addition to the amazing work that our teachers are doing, we've made several system shifts this year. We're really working to prioritize that all students have access to grade level tier one core instruction rather than being pulled out for intervention. We have a new literacy screener, Dibbles, which this data represents, which um while we're still calibrating our assessment practices across teachers and grades, um Dibbles is a really powerful tool because it's reliable, predictive data that's been validated with millions of students across the country. And the goal is for leaders, teachers, and specialists to be able to have access to that data in a way that's really actionable for students. We've also implemented monthly cross-sight professional learning that's focused on literacy that we're um really working to continuously refine and improve based on teacher feedback that we get from teachers each month. And our goal this year, we're about halfway there, is for 85% of our K5 students to be meeting or exceeding benchmark. Head to our next slide. So when we look at literacy by site, we see strong growth across all of our schools. Cornell and Marin are both above 80% of students um reading at or above grade level. And Ocean Views made a really notable jump of 11 percentage points since the start of the year. Go ahead to the next slide. Um and when we look across grade level, we see really strong gains. um especially with kindergarten making an impressive 19 point increase in students meeting or exceeding benchmark. Um first grade did a a great job reducing the percentage of students well below

benchmark. That's really huge especially in the early years. Um and in fourth grade the percentage of students reading above benchmark has nearly doubled which is just such a testament to our incredible teachers. Um, grades four and five in terms of proficiency did make more modest growth in the lower grades, which is not unusual because the further students get in the grade level, um, gaps can compound over time. So, it can take time for for students to grow there and those gains tend to be more incremental. When we look at some of our focal subgroups by race or and ethnicity, um some of our focal subgroups are really making meaningful growth with increases close to that 10point target. We set a goal to increase proficiency for our black students and our Latino students by 10 percentage points and our black students have made eight percentage points of growth and our Latino students have grown by 9%. Um at the same time, um our black and Latino students continue to experience disproportionately lower literacy outcomes. So there is more work to do there. Um when we look across other focal subgroups, um our multilingual learners, our students with disabilities, and our socioeconomically disadvantaged students have all made gains. Um some more modest than others. Um, but we're excited to see that our multilingual learners have grown pretty significantly in their proficiency by 12 percentage points. Um, and across our elementary school, the goal is really to use this data to target support progress monitor focal students who haven't made as much growth as we would like to see. Um, and our principles have met to analyze our middle-ofear data to consider plans for their sites. and our grade level teams have met to do um a similar type of analysis in order to inform next steps

as well as shifts in small groupoup instruction that happen during win time. This next slide's a little bit confusing at first glance. So, um I want to speak to it because it's a it's a pretty powerful one. At the beginning of the year, 96% of students who are reading at or above benchmark have remained at or above benchmark. So the way to read this slide is if we I wish I had a laser pointer. If you look at um let's start with the student that 38% of students who started the year above grade level. For those students 86% of those students remained above grade level is what that slide that graph tells us. 12% are at grade level. and think there's a really tiny little sliver that might represent one student who probably had an off day with their assessment um who dropped in proficiency. If you go to the top part of the chart where we look at our students who started the year well below grade level, more than almost half of them have made growth into a higher proficiency band. So that shows really accelerated growth there. um which is really exciting to see. Um the sort of gold standard for folks um who are really nerdy into science and know they're reading research is that if 95% of our kids who started the year at or above maintain in the at and above world um that tells us that our tiered systems are really working not just for our kids who need more support but for for the vast majority of our students. Get to the next slide. I'm going to shift now to um focus on our middle school um for our students in grades six through 8. And so um in the there the flow of slides will follow a similar structure. And these results come from also a new assessment this year called star reading which is a computer adaptive assessment um that

predicts student performance on the ESPback. That's a big reason why um the middle school team, those who were involved in selecting the new assessment last year, picked this assessment because it's so highly correlated to and predictive of um ASPback outcomes. Different than Dibbles, Star uses scaled scores that remain consistent over time, which allows us to track pretty authentic growth from one administration to the next. Um this is only the second time students have taken this assessment which is different than dibbles where students have been progress monitored on it. So these results really provide initial insight into student performance and really a baseline of where um where we are. Um and I do want to share um we've had a slight decline in proficiency this year. I think it's at two percentage points. Um, and I do just want to name before we dive a little bit deeper that we've heard from teachers that testing conditions sort of varied with some pretty significant number of students perhaps not engaging as seriously as we would hope with the assessment. So, one of the things we want to work on is better calibration of testing conditions. Our data can really be um valid, reliable, and we can really use it to um inform next steps. Um, our seventh grade student proficiency declined by five percentage points and the other grades remained relatively static. And go ahead to our next slide. And when we look at our subgroup of students, our subgroup, our student subgroups, our black and Latino students each declined by seven points since the beginning of the year, while other subgroups remained relatively stable. Can you sorry can you click one more slide? Thank you. Um and for other focal

subgroups we see some declines as well with multilingual learners dropping six percentage points as well as uh socioeconomically students socioeconomically disadvantaged students declining three points. Um while our students with disabilities remained have remained relatively stable. Um and so at this time we know our department leadership team at the middle school is really closely looking at data with principal MAE to sort of on a student by student level um understand what's happening for each kiddo so that planning can be informed for this spring and for for next year including budget development master schedule so that students can really um get their needs met. Um we're going to shift again here um to looking at reclassification um for our multilingual learners. So students who um started with us coded as English learners. So English um not being their um predominant language at home um and on the path towards reclassifying as um English proficient. And one thing to just sort of note here um is that this is really a snapshot of reclassification. Enrollment happens every day. So, we're constantly getting new students and students are exiting. Um, so the rates, the approximate percentage reclassified that you see there on the right are approximate. Um, overall, uh, reclassification rates vary from school to school, um, from 0 to% that you see on the slide to 22%. Um, and one thing to note at Marin where at the time of this slide deck being made a couple weeks ago, um, had zero students reclassified. Um, we what we've learned is that the EL teacher there tends to reclassify students later in the spring typically. Um, so at the since the slide deck was created, one student has already been reclassified and we expect that more will happen this spring as well. Um, and another piece to just name is

that the National Academy of Sciences and the California English Learner Roadmap suggests it takes between five to seven years to really acquire proficiency in a language. So, one thing to just note there, um, and we do know that most of our students who scored a four on last year's ELPAC will begin the reclassification process this year if they haven't yet. Into the next slide. Um Sarah, feel free to jump in if there's anything else you want to say about this piece regarding special education. Um but a piece that is not one of the measurable goals on vital signs that we did just want to highlight um is around the progress that we've made that's specific to special education where we have been increasing the amount of time that students with IEPs um spend in the GenEd classroom, which is huge. So students are not spending the majority of their time um outside of the classroom. Um, and we've been able to decrease disproportionality for some particular student groups as a result of that. Um, okay, that was a lot of information, so I'll do my best uh for a quick summary before I hand it over to Sarah. Um, but overall we're really excited about the progress our K5 students are making in reading. Um, which is such a direct result of our teachers um, implementing evidence-based reading instruction, responding to student data with care and skill. Um, and it's really exciting to see growth across all of our subgroups, which is just a huge dedication to our team um, and the trying on of new systems. and our middle school is in a great opportunity as they gather their baseline data to really think about what's working um what supports are needed in the spring and to inform planning uh for next year.

All right, thank you. Um so I am going to be doing the next section which um actually uh would be um executive director Bril um but she is at a um a conference uh for Aries this week and so I'll be taking on the student belonging section. Um next slide please. So as we know student connection is ultimately the key driver of academic success. We know that if students aren't attending school and um don't feel a sense of care and belonging when they're in school, they're actually not going to be able um to make academic progress. And so, of course, it's important for us to measure um how our students are doing in this and or more importantly, how are we doing to create a sense of care and belonging in our schools. And so the way that we look at this is through looking at our chronic absentee um rates as well as our suspension because again if students aren't at school um they're not uh learning at school. Next slide please. So uh this slide shows that at this point in the year and again this is when the slide deck was um created a couple um probably this is about a week ago. Um at this point in the year, our average daily attendance rate was 96.1%. Which is ultimately um actually a very um high percentage for most schools. Of course, we want as close to 100% as possible because as we know um most importantly, we want each and every student at school every day so that they're learning. Um, and also this is tied to our funding and so we want to make sure that we're as close to 99% so we get can get as much of our um money as as uh our students deserve. Um, I will say that historically attendance uh trends down towards the second half of the year. So we'll be anxious to see where we are at the end of the school year. Um, next slide please. So, in

terms of chronic absenteeism, which actually is um ultimately even more of an indicator of how students are going to do um in school, we are seeing that we're still not getting back to preandemic rates. Um there's a lot of wonderings about this and so we really want to do some more um digging into what's going on for our students and why are we not um getting back to those rates. But as you can see, we're actually um a little flat so far um from the last few years. And we again don't know exactly where we are going to be at the end of this school year yet. Um so this is something we're really paying attention to. Uh we still are higher um uh while we're still higher than preandemic rates, we are seeing um that they're that they're getting lower. So it's a we're trending in the right direction. Next slide, please. When we look at our um student focal subgroups, this is where of course we want to um do a little bit more digging. And what we're noticing um is students with disabilities definitely have higher chronic um absenteeism rates. Um and then you'll see that there's some other areas for disproportionality that we want to dig into. We also know that um students with disabilities show the greatest disproportionality, but they also um are connected to some of the other subfocal groups. And so we're starting to really dig in with that particular group as we really do some root cause analysis of what's going on. Next slide please. So this again is just another way of um another another sorry no this isn't sus this is suspension. I apologize. So we are looking at suspension um and our suspension rates. And what you can see actually is that we are actually doing a much better job across the district um uh to where we were before pandemic. So

this is actually a pretty positive slide. Um we do of course next slide please want to look at what's going on in terms of disproportionality. And so this slide you can see that we have similar with our um chronic absenteeism rates. We're noticing um certain uh of our focal um subgroups are definitely uh more disproportionately suspended than others. And again, we're trying to really dig in and focus in on students with disabilities because we also know that they um represent uh groups um from other focal groups. So that's where we're doing our root cause analysis trying to figure out what's going on. Next slide, please. So ultimately what we're doing now based on this data is again root cause analysis of suspensions um for students in our disproportionate um vocal subgroups. We're looking at chronic absenteeism for the same. And we are also looking at um where are we finding gaps in data collection and um intervention. And so we're really highlighting and focusing in on building up or continuing, I should say, to build up our coordination of services teams at schools to be able to look at all of this data regularly and gather and collect data that maybe they're not looking at um more regularly. Um and so again we our focus is really to figure out what are the strategies that are working across our schools that are helping to create that sense of care and belonging and increase those across the school. We do know that one of those strategies is that each and every student um identifies a caring adult at school that they know that they can go to and connect with. And so that's one of the things that we're focusing um on as we continue to build out our coordination of services teams and other things that we're doing at our schools. All right.

So now I am going to pass this on to um CBO Woo. Thank you. So as we talk about collaborative systems for continuous improvement, what are we really referencing? Next slide, please. We want to highlight basically what our focuses are and also on top of highlighting what our focuses are, how we're going to actually get there. So, we're focused on building systems that connect fiscal responsibility, operational excellence, and community trust. And how will we get there? Well, I feel like we've been putting a lot of effort actually on trying to simplify some of our financial data and reports to share out with our broader community. Uh we want to make sure that whatever we're sharing is visually clear. Um, it's supported in plain language. I'm hoping I'm contributing to that. Um, and make that easy basically for our staff, families, and our community members to understand. When we want to be sure that whatever it is that we're engaging in, whatever we're setting our priorities on is that it's databased. We want to create regular opportunities for students, staff, families, and community members to share input and show how that feedback informs decisions to stakeholders. And lastly, we're ensuring a safe, clean, and well-maintained schools because they create the foundation for student learning. We truly believe that and it contributes to staff well-being and community pride. And how will we get there? We'll use consistent site audit tools, clear maintenance standards, timely work. It's going to take a lot of effort for us to figure out what are all the areas that still need attention. Next slide, please. Here's a dashboard that I like because it visually just highlights things for me. So in terms of budget transparency, our goal is 100% of our leaders will have budget clarity by the spring of 2026. Our progress is about 80%. I feel very glad actually this year and excited that we've had a chance to meet with all

of our site leaders already to go through phase one of that planning. It's a process if anybody who's talking about budgets and planning and stuff. It's not something that you just toss together overnight. So, I'm very pleased to, you know, say that we're at 80% completion. I'm looking forward to phase two with our site leaders and reporting out an adopted budget at some point uh before the end of the fiscal year. Cleanliness, facility cleanliness. Um, aside from just cleanliness, I just want to make sure that all of our facilities are up to snuff. They're in good condition. They're wellkept. They're clean. They're presentable to our community for use and so forth. And so, we're spending a lot of our attention focused on that as well. So we're 70% complete there. Um our net promoter score our baseline uh we want to improve on that uh by now spring is like this weekend and we're at 60% completion. So clearly this is showing we have some progress to make here. And then in terms of survey participation we're 50% complete. We want to improve that uh by 10% participation rate when we're seeking out your feedback. Um, I know that sometimes surveys can be exhausting, but that really is a good avenue for folks to share out what they really think without putting people on the spot. Thank you. Next slide. In terms of fiscal stewardship, I take this to heart because this is really just like my whole foundation of my career. Um, we're at 80% right now in terms of we've we've published our budget timeline. We've shared that out with folks at the site leaders, even our um budget managers that are responsible for other departments that manage funds. Um we've completed escape uh phase one training uh with some of our other staff. We've introduced it. Um and we're also I I feel like we're making a lot of progress in site uh budget engagement. The next step is really um we're going to put out another survey and get more

clarity as well as start publishing our budget dashboards that really just emphasizes those key indicators that we want to continuously uh mark up and we're measuring ourselves against as well how well we're doing. Next please systems. So we start with strong first and then we uh talk about areas of improvement. Um, in terms of systems, we want to elevate our standards for facilities and cleanliness. Um, we understand that resources are always um, a limitation and, you know, we're taking that into account, but nonetheless, I'm working um, collaboratively with our M's team and so forth to try to figure out on the solution on how we can actually get better in these areas and make improvements. Um, one of the things I'm happy that we'll share later is that we've completed our bond audit for the year. Um, and then we're also making safety upgrades. Uh, we're in the planning phases of that. You guys have seen I've come up here, we provided an update, we're sending out surveys. This is a work in progress right now. So, we're kind of at 70% here. The next steps for this is to create more of a cleanliness rubric. Um, and then taking that into account with what staffing levels that we have because that's usually like a limitation and try to commit to the things that we can do and look at ways that we could creatively realign so we can make sure that all the things that we want to get done are getting done. Next slide, please. In terms of the climate, um, it's at 60% right now. We want to be able to get the type of communication framework in place. We want to produce like a warmth service model. Um it's not an us against them type of deal. It's not the budget office versus like the school sites. We want to be able to improve in this area. Um survey is another instrument here. Um and we'll also continue to provide um

dashboards. So, we're really working towards improving our communications and just putting the data out there that helps to I think number one gain the feedback probably without having to issue a survey or to have that data to base off of your some of your feedback for that you could share with us. engagement is about 50% right now. And I'll share that because we just completed basically our um budget town halls. And I could say that I wish because I get excited talking about budgets and planning and how do we make it better and get people's feedback on that. But I can tell you that from attending like those town halls, I wish the turnout would have been a little bit higher. So I would love some feedback um at some point to kind of figure out like how do we improve engagement in those areas. So, on that note, this is like a really I can't say that I created this or anything like that. Um, but it summarizes basically all of the updates that we just provided you in the key areas. Equitable and inclusive instruction, a sense of student belonging and collaborative systems. Any questions?

Uh, questions for the board. Um, I have I have a few. Um, the middle school, uh, you I appreciate that there may be some challenges with the testing environment. Um, what are some other what what are other things the teams maybe are considering to kind of change the trajectory on that? Yeah, great question. Thanks so much. Can I um are you asking specifically about testing condition environments? you're asking in general about the I mean I read I mean I read the data and it says essentially we're not making the progress we need to be making at a middle school from a reading perspective

and I get there's some noise in the system about maybe testing uh perhaps but if I if I'm say skeptical if I think that maybe comes out a little bit in the wash from the be the first test to the second test

what are some other things we're thinking about to kind of go after that that area because I'd love to see more progress there obviously Yeah, great question. I think the the first thing that we're working to do is for the leadership teams at the middle school to really dig deep into the data and analyze it. I know um our middle school team sent me a spreadsheet of all the student by student data to really deeply dig in to see sort of what's going on um in order to make a smart plan that's based off of a real root cause analysis rather than you know really reactively responding to the data which can be tempting I think sometimes. Um and I think from there the questions sort of depend on how that root cause analysis goes. So for example something that we tried this year in the elementary school is creating systems that ensure that no student is pulled from tier one. Um I know something that um uh principal ME has talked about is thinking about master scheduling for next year. And so I think there's going to be, you know, a process this spring to think about, you know, for our students who are not where we want them to be, how do those kiddos schedules look and what kind of supports are needed and how do we align the budget around that, whether that's around intervention classes or other additional supports. And then with the uh the English the reclassification data

um is there a reason or should we think about that process being the same across um sites or is that the wrong way to think about it just so we don't end up with a spot where it's like oh actually this site's doing it differently.

Yeah, it's a great question. Um I think historically what I understand um from talking to Michelle Sinclair who is sort of our closest point person with um our elementary ELD teachers who are absolutely phenomenal um is that the ELD teachers have really led that process at a sightby-sight basis which in my experience is different than other systems where it is more um sort of all together and there's a lot of stakeholders involved and so um I know that that's a conversation that has come up in that uh community of practice space and um definitely open to shifting that and also really wanting to make sure that um the folks who are the closest to the work are the ones who are leading any of those potential changes in the future around that process.

And then my last question and to be honest actually you you may or may not be best positioned to answer it. I'll do my best about special ed. So we saw the the decrease in risk ratio for Hispanic students that dropped from 3.88 to 3.31. So that's like a really positive progress. So fantastic. Mhm. Do we know what like practices kind of led to that improvement and if so, how are they they are they relevant to other areas and then he tell me that director bigs is the person I should be talking to. I understand

it is but I did talk with him and I told him I'm going to do my best to impart his bountiful wisdom. Um I think a couple things I think one is that because we have a system in K5 where students are protected from being pulled out that has caused some shifts. The vast majority of kids are able to get their service minutes met within that structure. Um I think that's a part of it. The second piece is that um two of our schools utilize a model for designated EL English language development where it's in addition to core instruction um rather than during the same time or in place of it. Um so I think that there's been some impact there. Um there's been some students who have graduate who have um I'm not sure if graduated is the right phrase but graduated from special education and then there's been some students who um have exited Albany. So I think it's a confluence of those factors. Thank you. Uh any questions from the room? Go ahead.

Um so first I want to say thank you for uh putting this together. Uh last year we had uh Familina had an individual site uh meeting about the student data and it was really helpful to have all this on hand and how the way we broke it down for them to understand. So I I what I come to you is how your data comes to be in practical sense. So the way it is first of all I want to commend you for using the language Latino latina l because one of the thing is that I concentrate is to talk to the parents getting involved in the community and one of the sentences that I've gotten many times is that when you use Lion X uh they're like oh that's them but not really like for us and I'm like no it it means all of us and they're like so having that already there and quote the data that it makes him now personal it makes it like okay So it's me too. So that's the one point. The other point is the students. How do we help the students? What what happened is after reviewing the data, we partner up more with different parts of the uh the districts uh teachers, staff and everything. And what we ended up doing is for example uh three kids were uh missing classes not doing the work uh having poor performance and the principal was able to identify and propose that hey we have this resource which is us for the parents and the students to come and talk to us. What happened was is they weren't understanding what they were learning. So that's why they were having problem. And then with principal ma uh mabe's uh uh meetings three years ago, he was saying, you know, the students are uh performing. How can we get it? And in that meeting came with the parents, hey, how about you email that there's going to be a test beforehand to the parents and we've tested it out. And so now I see that in place because I can tell my daughter and I told her, "Hey, there's a

test. Juniors are getting tested in next date. Make sure you're there." So anyways, I just want to say thank you for that. Your data is helpful and it's making a difference. Great. Thank you for that. Uh any other questions or comments from the board? Just a quick comment.

Just uh just an appreciation um as I shared in the student achievement committee meeting. I just don't recall seeing middle of the year data certainly in this clear away broken out the way that it is. And um it just really allows us to to ask these questions and and think about um how we can improve, how we can celebrate the improvement that we have and how we can um focus on continuing to improve and not just accepting, oh that's these groups of students are always going to be doing this, you know. Um and I really appreciate it and just because anytime you can say James Baldwin words, one should not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. So, thank you.

Thank you, Trusty Boyd. Thank you. Thank you for your eloquence. Um, any other questions? You I know, but well, but you always seem to pull the right quote out of the out of your out of your pocket. Um, great. Thank you so much. And I I too appreciate all the D. You know, I love my data. So, that was that was fantastic. So, thank you so much. Shout out to uh Dan, our data and assessment TSA and our teaching and learning team. Yes. Yes. Yes. Anybody who's bringing me data is uh my good side. Um, okay. Now we're moving on to review and action items. Next item, uh, Director Shriner, I think you're you're up for that one. The, um, independent contractor services agreement with Ignite Reading to support students who qualify for expanded learning opportunities program. Oh my gosh,

I said I said thank you, but I tried to bring you back. Sorry, I was couple extra steps on the uh, tracker today.

Um, okay. I think there's an attachment we can pull up here. Um I'm going to talk a little bit about what Ignite reading is and then um our thoughts around operationalizing this work to support um some of our more vulnerable uh learners. Um so Ignite Reading is an organization that partners with districts to provide what what we in the reading world would call tier 2.5 um intervention services. It's one-on-one individual tutoring um that happens virtually. So there is a live tutor, a real person with you. Um and all of the tutoring is focused on foundational reading skills. So the kids who um engage in Ignite reading are all kids who have gaps typically in the kindergarten through 2 grade skill level area. Um you can scroll through the slides and I'll tell you when to Yeah, you can move. Here we go. Perfect. So the really interesting thing about Ignite as an organization, they've been scaling over the last few years. Um, and I know, um, Tony Thurman is really interested in investing in this organization with his moonshot plan for the state, um, because they're getting such incredible data. Um, but essentially they work with districts across the country and the effect size of their intervention is the same as one-on-one in-person tutoring. Um, you can scroll to our next slide. Um and they have some really incredible um data um in terms of gains that they've made where particular to first grade um but these sort of exist across the the grade bands but where they really closely study with John's Hopkins is around um first grade readers um who make eight times as much growth when working with an Ignite reading tutor. And their most recent study that just got published, it's the second attachment in the board agenda, um, is that 85% of first graders who work with an Ignite reading tutor don't need intervention for the rest of their elementary career. Um, which is pretty incredible. Um, yeah, keep going.

I think I'll pause there around the data. How the reason we're interested in partnering with Ignite Reading is because we have students who are enrolled in our afterchool program and who qualify for ELOP. So they meet different indicators whether they're multilingual learners, um whether they are unhoused, um whether they qualify as low income. And when we looked through the data of our kids who are in the after school program, we have 55 students who are at risk for future reading difficulty. So on their middle of year dibbles um data they are either at high risk or at some risk and so those students are all getting support during the school day. This would be an additional support on top of it. The way that Ignite reading works is that it's 15 minutes of high high dosage tutoring every day um that happens with their tutor. And the way that we are hoping to operationalize this, um, Michelle Sinclair is working with our principles across the sites to identify a staff member who can pick up the kiddos, bring them with their Chromebooks, have them in a quiet space, they have 15 minutes with their tutor, they talk to them over headphones, they practice their reading skills out loud. Um, and we're hoping to have a spring sort of pilot um, where we would try that out for a spring cycle, which the dates, I think, are April 13th through the end of the year. Um, and then also tried this on as part of the ELOP component of our summer school program. So, we would work really hard to enroll those same 55 students into the summer school program so that they would essentially get two cycles of intervention data and then based off of a combination of their endofear dibbles data as well as the progress monitoring that Ignite does because when you work with Ignite, you get access to a literacy specialist who analyzes all the data for you. Um, we would then identify up to 25 students who would benefit from continued tutoring throughout all of next year as well. I think the last piece I'll say um before questions is

that the way that um Ignite works is you're paying for a slot. So, um, like for example, if we have 25 students next year and a fifth grader graduates, which typically happens because they make such accelerated growth in the program, we can slot another student in who needs additional support without additional cost. Um, so our hope is to use the money that we can't use for anything other than supporting ELOP to really give direct um, support to our students who need it the most. I would love any questions right now. Thank you. Questions from the board.

Not a question, but a correction for the contract. I think we accidentally put the wrong year. Um, the wrong assuming because we're at 2526, it just on page one it says February 2025. Oops. Sorry. Thank you. I should have emailed you. I'm sorry. Nope. That's okay. But other than that, it sounds wonderful and I'm excited for it. Sorry. That's okay. Sorry for the tapers. Let's ask a clarifying question. So you mentioned the number of students who at this point have been identified as needing the extra support. So can I I'm trying to sort of visualize how this would work in an LOP setting. So it would be a number of children simultaneously having tutoring.

Yes. So it would depend on the site. So at Ocean View, for example, there's 24 students versus the middle school there's three. Um and so it would really depend. Um, and so one of the things Michelle Sinclair would be would be doing is creating what the tutoring schedule is because these happen at 15inute increments and the tutors are they work with kids across the country. So tutors are available I'll give an example of from 2 to 2:15 they're with a student and then 2:15 to 2:30. So in a world where um there's space that's large enough to house a group of 24 kids that could work or it might be multiple rooms or it might be a schedule. Um, but that would sort of happen dependent on what the space constrictions are um, and the staffing availability um, at the site. And so, yeah, I think I answered your question.

Yeah, thank you. Sounds good. Then is the how is is the methodology from Ignite, how does it like align with what we're already doing in the classroom? I I I would hope it would be at the least complimentary. Yeah. But I feel like I should ask, heaven forbid it's orthogonal to what we're trying to do in the classroom. I just want to use orthogonal correctly in a sentence. So go ahead.

Absolutely. It's a great question. Um I think for for context, we we are not aligned right now as an elementary system, right? We've got 10 different phonics programs going. So um I think that's just the current state of the reality. That didn't make sense, but I think you know what I mean. Our our phonics pilot is going to continue through next year. So we realistically the earliest we'll have an aligned phonics program during our day school is January 2027. More likely August 2027. So just that for some context and then um the scope and sequence that Ignite uses um comes from a program called Bookworms which is a systematic phonics program that's evidence-based that every curriculum varies slightly in terms of when different sounds are taught but um nothing drastically compared to what we use which is primarily sips for intervention. So it would be structured literacy that's evidence-based that would definitely complement what's happening in classrooms and provide extraal extra at bats. Um, one of the things that we talk about in reading PD with the teachers, that's kind of just an interesting fun fact, is that um, a typical reader takes them between four to 12 times at practicing something to orthographically map it to your long-term memory. For a kiddo who's really struggling with reading, it can take to up to 400 times. And so what it really comes down to is the number of at bats, the number of practices for kids who are behind to make that growth. So yeah,

thank you. Uh um Vice President Nichlas. So um I see the contract is not to exceed 170,000 and you're talking about it being a pilot. Um is that the pilot amount and what what do you mean like when would you decide it was a pilot and it was working? Um not just for the kids, but I'm more thinking operationally because it can be hard to get 24 kids or three kids or 30 kids into a room during EOP.

Yeah, absolutely. Great questions. Um, and transparently, I I personally have experience using Ignite and other systems um, where that have really supported kids to make accelerated growth. Um, operations is definitely a really important part for it to go well. Um, so I'm excited for Michelle to work that out with the principles. Um, I don't know, Julie, if we're able to put the contract up on the screen or if it's better for me to put it up on my laptop. Um, but I can speak about the cost breakdown. Um, maybe it's maybe it's easier here. Give me just one quick moment. Okay, here we go. So, I think what you'll see in the attachment that you have, so for this spring, for 55 seats from April 13th through May 29th, the cost for those 55 students to get daily tutoring is $38,775. The cost for the summer program with for those 55 students continue a second cycle is slightly less $35,750 which is based on the length of time. Um and then at that point in time like our after we do our initial spring what we would want to do is look at our end of year dibbles data and look at the ignite data in order to determine is this is this working for students or not. Um, and then the largest portion of the cost comes from thinking about of those 55 students, which 25 would benefit from the continued additional intervention next year if that's something that would be good for them.

Another question, do we have continued ELOT money if we wanted to continue or is this I mean I understand the ELO money is something we have to spend and is it future money as well? Yeah, that's a great question. Linda, I don't know if you have the specifics of money for this year for ELOP versus next year if you want to speak to that.

Great question. Um, thank you. So, basically with the ELOP funds right now, we do have um some one-time carryovers that we could use um to towards this. It won't cover all of it, but even in the next year because of the when they rolled out our ELOP funding, we've been behind in terms of like being able to utilize that year's like like funds. So, I know like right now the current year's ELOP funds is going to carry over fully into next year as well. So, I think that this is something that we could pilot and see if it works for now and then if something that we want to invest in on the longer term, we'll have to figure that out. public comment. Any questions from the comments from the room?

Thank you for bearing with me. I know I've been here for a while, but this is the part that I actually stayed for. Um the reason why is because I just want to say that uh statistically speaking the um people used to think that reading and help and assistant it was better at a later grade than the beginning where kindergarten uh first grade uh would be and that has proven that it has made a difference in the child for two reason. One the child has a better experience in school. they they feel apart. They don't feel like they're uh falling behind or not the same. And for the second is that it at the earlier uh the early I don't have the word uh sorry I had it um

prevention

prevention stage you can help identify uh the students needs and that helps if it's going to be long-term or short term. So by having this program is very important to help those students who otherwise would be uh having a really hard time. Um reading is uh one of the best things we can do. Uh I encourage my kids to read. My daughter reads like three four books and and and she goes between all four of them. And so um I just want to say thank you for bringing that. The only thing I got is that the Elon uh supports the afterchool program and it's a wonderful program and I would hate to see that um 166,000 would be taken from that to fund this. So I would ask the board if there's any way you can help uh in any way to try from other funds perhaps see what can happen to not have to take all that chunk out of it. But if it if it has to happen then I I I say wonderful. Thank you.

You uh any comments on the Zoom? Seeing none comment from Superintendent Stone. Well, executive uh Director Shriner, can you just um remind everyone where the funds that the funds are not coming are not being taken out of other ELO funds? Can you explain that again? Yes. Um, thank you. So, we're continuing to have the same amount of money for the after school program. So, none of that will change. Um, this is in addition to support kids who qualify for ELAP and who are at risk for reading. Thank you for that clarification.

I have a motion. Oh, question from Trusty Shak. Um, wait, so how much was a how much was a personal again? I just was curious. So, it depends on the length of time. Um, but for year for say one more time like per year like for if we were to do like for all of next year for example. Is that what you're asking? I was curious. For K1 students it's 15 minutes a day and so it's 2500 per slot and then um for second through fifth graders it's recommended for them to have 30 minutes a day because they tend to have more compounding gaps. Um and so for second through fifth graders for a full year it's 4,475.

Okay. And then of course for the spring and the summer all that's prorated and good question. Any other questions? Great. I have a motion. I move to approve the independent contract services agreement with Ignite Reading to support students who qualify for expanded learning opportunities program. I'll second the motion. All in favor? I. The motion passes. Thank you. I appreciate the applause. Um, all right. Moving on to salary amendment for confidential management unrepresented employee groups.

Good evening. Um, let me I'm on Zoom and I think I need to Oh, can you hear me? Okay. Good evening. Uh, let me share my screen really quickly. Yes. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Oh, perfect. Okay. So, this item we are just um applying the 2% um general compensation increase that the board authorized for all employee groups. And so this includes we have a group of folks that are called confidential. This is going to be our certificated classified management. And then several of our unrepresented specialists that you see there. And this is this uh 2% would be retroactive to July 1st, 2025. Questions from the board. public comment. Uh, hold on one second. Uh, on Zoom, you're you should be allowed to talk. Go ahead. You're you're you're on.

You hear me? Yep. Go ahead. Hi. Uh, my name is Margaret Glendenning. I'm a office clerk, a classified employee in the district, and CSCA member. Um, I just want to say that I feel like this item and the next item, um, the salary increases for these two categories of employees, I feel like is a bit premature to to vote on this. Um, considering that our the CSEA negotiations are ongoing and have not been concluded. Um, so I just hope you take that into account before you approve these items. Thank you. Thank you.

So, part of the reason that we're bringing this at this time is because um, CBO Woo's uh, fiscal team is doing work to prepare for next year. Some of that includes rolling over positions and that can't happen until the salaries are in place. Also, um it's a lot of work to do retro payments for all the employees in the district. We only have one payroll person and so this is going to help her to sort of break it up in chunks. So, we'll do teachers and um some of these these are smaller groups. Um, and then that way when we when we reach an agreement with CSEA and SEIU, then that'll be another kind of a more bite-size or doable for our payroll percent.

Um, no comments. Any other questions? Do I have a motion? I move to approve the salary amendment for confidential management and representative unrepresented employee groups. Second. All in favor? I

motion passes. Moving on to salary amendment for underrepresent unrepresented classified hourly employees. So these a lot of these are um our pool employees and um other sort of like we've got our music assistants that help with the band teacher and we have our afterchool um instructors that help with interventions. So that's who these folks are and so they get paid on an hourly basis and there is a mistake in here. The effective date for this increase should be March 11th, 2026. So take effect tomorrow.

Questions from the board. Comments from the the room or on Zoom? Seeing none. Do I have a motion? I'll move to approve the salary amendment for unrepresented classified hourly employees with the amendment that this begins tomorrow, March 11th. Yeah, March 11th. Sorry, I just had to make sure I had the correct date. Uh 2026, not the July 1st, 2025 date. Second. All in favor? I I motion passes. Thank you.

Uh now we're moving on. Stay up there. We're moving on to uh remember we we adjusted the agenda, so we're move on to E. Approval of public disclosure of collective bargaining um agreements. Okay. And I'm going to do this together with CBO Woo. So, the board saw this at the February 24th board meeting in a draft form. This is a required um document that we have to submit to the county office. We did that. The county has approved it and they sent us a letter which the board will see uh soon um after this gets approved.

Questions from the board? Seeing none, comments from the room or on Zoom. Seeing none, do I have a motion? I move to appro approve the approval of the public disclo disclosure of collective bargaining agreements. Second. All in favor? I. Motion passes. Thank you.

Thank you. Um, now we're moving on to item D 2425 AUSD bond measure B and E financial audit reports. Sorry, you see Bobby Fan on there. Okay, so at this time we've concluded our annual bond audit for the two um parcel taxes uh measure B and E. Uh just as a quick highlight um is that measure uh B was actually passed um with regards to payments actually for modernization for the Ocean View and the Marin campus. We are basically concluding it at this point. If you look at the annual audit report, we have a whopping $42 left, but overall it's relatively clean. And then with regards to measure E, that was passed to actually help modernize our middle school um and also provide some improvements for technology and so forth. So in the last um in 2425, we carried forward one and a half million. Uh we spent about 300,000 to make some improvements uh on the middle school and also to provide and improve some technology. Uh and with that said, we have about 1.2 million left. And I have Bobby Fan from Christy White here who provided the audit. Is there any other uh updates you'd like to highlight?

Uh thank you for having me. Um it was just we conducted the audit and it was a clean audit. There's both of them were unmodified. We tested the financial state. um statement opinion and also performance audit opinion and there were no findings. Great. Any questions from the board? Uh comments from the room or on Zoom? Oh, wait. We do have a question from the board. Vice President, go for it. What happens to the 1.2 million from um bond E? Does it just roll over to L? Is he frozen? No, with regard what was that question again? Sorry.

What happens to the remaining 1.2 million? We continue to actually make some priority plans uh with regards of the use of those funds. So it carries forward into the next year. Yeah. Bond. Separate bond. That's the ending fund balance. Yes. It's the same pool of funds. That's correct. Great. Any other questions? We have a motion. By the way, I'm always happy to get a clean uh audit, so who knows? I move to approve the 2024-25 Albby Unified School District bond measure BNE financial and performance audit reports.

Second, uh all in favor? I I Who's I'm giving that one to Trusty Boyd on the photo finish. Oh. Well done. First move advantage. Great. Thank you. Thank you so much. And thank you for uh thank you for coming, Mr. Fan. Um great night. You too. Um now we're on to the second inter school year 202526.

Just a quick reminder, this is where we are on the calendar and I feel like it's almost like a wheel on a car. It's going by really quickly. Before you know it, we'll be back in July again. Just as a quick refresher, this at the last reporting period that I provided a formal update was at first interim. And this just shares, you know, to continuously remind folks that enrollment basically drives like how much revenue we expect to get. And it also informs us on what types of expense priorities we want to make. So last time I reported, we were at 5.4 million deficit spending primarily because we're spending down our restricted grant funds. At second interim, uh, we're at almost spring. I like to call it spring. It's been warm. Um, I like to emphasize heavily on the enrollment, but not just the enrollment. I want to highlight the ADA. The attendance drives basically how much our unrestricted LCFF revenue we can expect to get. And especially because it's so tight right now, I just want to share that our current rate is about 95.88%. a 1% increase to that will actually contribute an additional 400 approximately 400,000 to our revenue stream. So, I just want to share that that's why we spend so much effort monitoring the attendance. So, with that said, what has changed since first interim? Now that we're in second interim, our uh deficit spending increased by 5.8 million. And I'll I'll dive into the explanation of what I'm seeing uh in a in a couple of slides. This is a super highle summary of all of our unrestricted and restricted general funds. I circled uh if you could take your attention to the last column on the right, the yellow column at the top where you see like the green circle. I'm highlighting that overall our total revenues went up by uh more than 300,000. And that's primarily because we've collected more donations. So, thank you to all of our donors out there

uh that's contributing and investing in our school district. the less favorable ones that are colored in red, the circles, the circles in red kind of identifies as we're looking at the increase in revenue. I'm also seeing that we increased our spending again. And I wanted to highlight the areas of where I see that. So in classified support salaries, it increased overall by 165,000. Yes, we have vacancies, but I also know that because of those vacancies, we've had to pay, you know, additional funds for substitutes, primarily some overtime, you know, for coverage from our classified support staff and so forth. So, that spending has increased since then because of that. Um, when you look at materials and supplies, I could see that on the materials area, we're starting to ramp up truthfully for and prepare for the next fiscal year. So, I'm starting to see some of the additional curriculum orders come in. And so that's what's driving that increase there um in our budget. And then as we goes to the services line, our contracted services that has increased by 459,000 and I'll explain that in the next slide uh with regards to the why, but the highle notes are there. um revenue, donations went up, salary and benefits were covering for subs and vacancies, uh costs and needs, uh materials and supplies went up, and then our services um also increased, which is showing then that we're deficit spending a little bit more than we last time reported. for inquiring minds. The services line. This breaks down basically all of the core expenses that that defines what's considered a contracted service. So you can see overall it went up by 459,000 since I last came up here at first interim. 244,000 of that increase uh was due to a contract former healthcare for psych support services. So as you know for special education support when we

get our IEP recommendations in place we must adhere to it and psych service positions in general is very very hard to hire for and so we must contract out to ensure that the continuity of the services continue and in addition to that we also have a vacancy for an actual psychologist on board. So we also have to contract for coverage in that area. 82,000 of it was for Rising Star Academy, 39,000 was for Zen Educate. That is basically an what we're anticipating a not to exceed amount. And so we contracted out for approximately 39,000. They are basically like a subpool for our PAR educators. So as you know, a PAR educator calls in sick, it's difficult to make sure you have coverage. So, we've contracted out with Zen Educate to ensure that, you know, we can quickly fill that gap with teaching and learning. We're investing $35,000 in Panorama Education. It's a student success platform that that allows for us, we talked about data earlier. So, it allows for us to make uh more datainformed um decisions, technology services. uh we invested in some software that that basically is like a cloud-based support for all of our Apple users. Um in addition to that, we've also contracted out with a service provider to help monitor our emails to avoid um intrusion basically and to protect our data uh even with our emails. So we we strongly feel that that's an investment that'll help improve the security cyber security for us. And then there's just some maintenance stuff that's going on that's you know pretty typical HVAC repairs document solutions as you know HK kit presented it's difficult to locate some of our documentation we contract it out with a company uh that was previously approved um that will help us to kind of collect all of that and you know with AI and our devices and stuff we can easily

access that at any given time without having to dig through a lot of old blueprints and maps and so forth. So in a nutshell that kind of that kind of describes the gist of what's contributing to the increase in our costs. This is just a friendly reminder of what unrestricted and restricted funds are. As we know that unrestricted funds pretty much contribute to what we can set aside for our rainy day fund, our reserves and so forth. But you know as I separate this out the unrestricted column shows at the bottom line that we are able to meet our 3% reserve as of second interim. And in addition to that I'm showing that we've set aside the committed amount as a result of our 2% increase um from our negotiations. So the little bit more challenging piece and the forecasting piece, the market, the economy, the outlook, we hear on the news every day that there's a constant swing and it makes it very difficult for those of us that are in the financial profession to forecast. So we will do the best that we can right now based off of data that's available today. These are the underlying general assumptions. Right now we have um the enrollment forecast is that as of right now we're keeping it flat for the multi-year projection but we are going through intense exercises right now um to develop next year's budget. So we're actually evaluating that and working very closely with teaching and learning and student services to figure out whether or not we should just kind of hold steady here or are there any indications that it's going to go above or below. So, as I come back and present to you a draft of our budget proposal for next fiscal year, you will see updates in this area. LCFF revenues, we've updated our colas. Um, the good news is that in FY27, originally I left it completely flat at

2.3 because we were getting indications it was going to fall really low. Um, so now FY27 is looking like they're going to commit to a 2.41% COLA for next year. A little bit better. Better than 2.3. Not a whole lot. I wish it was more. And then in fiscal year 28, they're recommending a 3.06% cola and I hope that sustains. Federal and state, not too exciting there. Not too many changes and updates there. Local revenue, we're increasing that basically by 3% for our parcel tax. The expense column reference um basically our salary schedules, medical benefits, too early to tell, but we're guesstimating approximately a 3% increase. And then for materials and supplies, fiscal year 27, um, we're using a consumer price index increase of 3.08%. And in fiscal year 28, it's 2.75. I I think it'll be higher than that, but this is the recommendation for from school services of California right now. So we're going to kind of gently, you know, glide with that for now and then and to take it from there. So what is the impact of trying to factor all those assumption in place? I won't go through all the numbers or all the columns but the highlight here is that the first red ario arrow that you see at the top of your screen is basically showing that we are spending down our beginning fund balance. You'll see that over time it's going down. That number is coming down. So that coincides with what I shared earlier which is that we're showing we've been deficit spending. So when you deficit spend, what carries forward into your balances for the future starts to dwindle down over time. So I wanted to share that this is in fact illustrating that and then in terms of total expenses with the colas and everything else, it's also climbing. What this really shows me though is that when you have a 2.41% cola and your inflation rate for cost of things is going up by 3.08%.

Something still has to give. And I I don't like that currently our funding situation puts us in that predicament. how that impacts our reserves um on the multi-year is that you know we're projecting that you know I took I took into account one-time expenses that should come out over the future years and from even with that exercise right now it there's indications that we will continue to deficit spend even though by fiscal year 28 it'll be less the committed column I highlight is just share sharing out that we've set aside the funds that we need for the 2% over the next three uh and what that impact is and then the reserve for economic uncertainty is what we absolutely must maintain the 3% reserve. Um, and you could see here that I put it in yellow primarily that because in fiscal year 28, the two yellow boxes that you see, the top one is the additional reserve, we've been setting aside, the 2% set aside for a rainy day fund. By fiscal year 28, we don't have anything additional to set aside. Um, usually when we set that aside, the the bottom box that the bottom yellow box where we show what's available, we will usually say, "Oh, we set aside 2% over here. We met our 3% reserve." So once we kind of do our due diligence on that piece, what's still left over for us to figure out what we can prioritize for. And so you can see by fiscal year 28, we won't have that. I'm hoping things change. The May revise hasn't come out yet, but based off of what we know today, this is what the outlook is looking like. And this just kind of highlights that we're spending down our restricted funds. Same summary except just restricted funds.

And when you're spending down your restricted fund balance, that's actually okay because grants expire and you want to spend it before it expires. And this is just the combined total for inquiring minds if you want to reference back to that. But I won't talk through um all of this information. So on that note, what is next? I think the good part is I've been here 11 months now. 11 months now. And I've had the opportunity to show you that throughout each incremental period I come back here and give you guys an update. I'm seeing the trends. and trends are very informative for how that feeds into my budget development process. So, I'm actually excited that I have some trends to follow right now and to work with all of our partners out there to figure out like what we need to accurately predict our budget for next year. So what is it that we we really really need to do and what are some things that perhaps we can defer because managing to that 3% reserve is the utmost of importance to me right now aside from ensuring that all of the classrooms and the schools get what they need. So, on that note, next steps. We did all our town halls. Like I said, I wish the turnout would have been a little bit better. As I mentioned earlier, uh on March 10th, today, I'm hoping that you guys will just approve our second interim budget revision. In May is what I'm really looking forward to. Even though we would have been really well into our budget development process for next year and put quite a bit of assumptions in place, but if it's in our favor, I'm I'm willing to take that right back and recraft some an update for you guys. So, I I'm eager to see what the May Ray Revise has to say. And then in June will be our first public hearing and then June 23rd, uh, we will adopt next year's budget.

Any questions? Questions from the board? Vice President have a question about the um the overage. So, I am not really sure how to think about it. It's almost a half a million dollars. I can understand the special ed. We don't have I feel like we don't have a lot of control over some of that. Um but the remainder is like over 100,000

which is not significant or it is significant I guess. But how are these items these items planned for and we just went over in cost? Were they not planned for and we approved them? How I haven't seen an item like this I haven't been here very long so maybe it happens all the time but how should we think about the overage? So, I would say that uh in particular when we're talking about contracting out to cover for vacancies, the most challenging part I think for us as a school district is that in order for us to keep the position open, we have to keep the budget open as well for that. So, it's not like you could just take that away and then move it to services. So, what you're seeing right here is that we're keeping the budget in place to accommodate that at some point we hope to fill that vacancy. And then in addition to that though, in the meantime, we know for sure we have to contract for the services. So it's again it's a not to exceed amount and I'm hoping that we finish the year not maximizing out what we're projecting that cost to be.

I'm sorry but the items are like teaching and learn learning. These are student success platform technology maintenance and ops. Were those items budgeted for and we went over or

they were set aside they they were basically parked. So when I'm sharing with you that it's increasing on the services line item, we're basic. So when we carry over funds, we actually carry it over a lump sum for those purposes. When you identify how you want to use that lump sum, you have to put it into an object, right? You have to put it into an expense code. And this is where you're actually seeing it. So we're no longer reserving it. We're actually pushing it out there so that you guys could spend it. And so some of like so some of like the maintenance stuff that I could tell you is is un I could tell you some of those things things break down just like our cars break down. You don't expect it. I've bought three windshields for my own car unexpectedly. I don't plan for that but it happens right and so with when it comes to like maintenance and ops those things happen. And especially as we're moving towards creating a facility's master plan we're moving towards trying to define what a deferred maintenance schedule should look like. I think we'll get better and we'll improve in terms of those unforeseen things that do come up.

Are some of those items though like the HVAC thing and the uh documents for master planning? Can we move those into bond initiatives and out of the the GL or or is that the wrong I'm not an accountant nor do I play one on TV but like how should I think about that? That's a great question. So when we think about the bond funds and I'm not encouraging any shady accounting practices because I always appreciate a clean uh clean audit report.

Me too. But in ter That's an excellent question. So when we're thinking about updating the facilities master plan and maybe pushing some of those things out to the bond project, the challenge is that those funded items, we're just going into the first phase of issuing bonds, right, and selling some bonds right now. So when we're looking at some of those HVAC improvements, some of those really can't wait another two, three years for us to implement a repair there. But what I do want to do is look at that as a wholeheartedly project, as an HVAC improvement project. I don't want to u move us in the direction of peacemealing. So, right now we're working towards, you know, if we could just replace a condenser right now or, you know, or a compressor or something like that that keeps it functioning for another year, it buys us the time to go ahead and do that before we go ahead and say, "Well, everything's crashed. Let's go ahead and invest all this money in a new HVAC system when we're still trying to develop the priorities for our from from our facilities master plan." The hard part is what's breaking right now can't wait.

Yeah. Um other questions from the board. uh like so one one other comment would be so uh one one one thing I want to say so always totally appreciate your uh the clarity and transparency that you're bringing to the budget like um explaining it to explaining school budgets are not so based on state restrictions I think that's the technical term under ed code but um and the way we have to look at the the budget because of the the the restrictions from ed code perspective and the and the state the state requirements are nuts. So, um but so I appreciate you you're trying to make it um much more digestible for for the rest of us. I'd also sort of want to call out that

you're bas what I basically am seeing is that by as you said by 28 we're at zero in terms of like flexibility. That's assuming everything in the from an assumptions perspective goes exactly right.

Yeah. And then I sort of want to name the consequences of that if things go wrong, which are that we as a school district will no long would no longer then be making decisions about what we want to happen in the school district in terms of anything and this this board would essentially turn its power over to the county. So, it's important. Obviously, it's super I I appreciate that the numbers work out right now great. And I know we all want the things come in a little bit more favorable maybe than they are, but I also think we're going to have to be um particular given California's um tax situation. Um things go ary, it's going to be really hard for us as a district because we don't have a lot of flexibility left in it. So, I just wanted to sort of name that. Um, any questions from the room? Comments from the room? Any comments or questions or comments on Zoom? Seeing none, do I have a motion?

I move to approve a second interim report and budget revision number two, the 2526 fiscal year. Second. Trusty Boyd got in there with the second. Okay. Um, all in favor? I I opposed. Great. Thank you.

Motion passes. Thank you so much. Um, now going to move on to the consent calendar. Um, before we move forward with the approval of the consent calendar, I think we want to pull item E, which is the job description for school attendance and family engagement coordinator. Um, and then the personnel report. I know had some um or some issues with that. Um, do you want to comment on that? Um, chief human resource officer Gondalf.

Thank you. So, and in the second category, status change, administrator on special assignment. That's a fixed term from July 1st, 2026 to June 30th, 2027. So, um, in case for those of you who wait, what's going on here? So, it just needs a change in the date. I was just keen too quickly. Um, so if we want to modify uh that to to read 2027. Uh, anything else on the consent calendar at the end of the table? Uh, Trusty Boy, Trusty Khan, anything worth we're worth we're sharing with the group.

Okay. Yeah. I I apologize if this is just me being silly. Um, but also in that same category for the site, there's a site I identified as PV. Is that correct or is that um OV meant to be OV? OV. Thank you. The the Yes, the P key is next to the O key. Good. Good call. Good. Good eye. Okay. So, do we have a motion to approve the consent calendar with um pulling E and the adjustments? That's so move to approve the consent calendar with item E being pulled and with the corrections that we just mentioned to the personnel report.

Second. Way to be aggressive, Vice President. All in favor? I against the motion passes. Um on to um future board meetings and agenda planning. Any uh topics for future board meetings we need to identify. Seeing none, um and we do not need to return to close session. So I move at 9:26 to adjourn the meeting. I move to adjourn and I will second. All in favor?

I meeting adjourned. Thank you very much.